Elden Ring Malenia Boss Fight: How To Defeat Malenia, Blade Of Miquella

The Elden Ring Malenia boss is quite frankly, the most difficult boss in the history of the soulsborne genre, with two phases of fighting that present incredible difficulty to even the most seasoned souls veterans. Elden Ring has a range of bosses which scale in difficulty toward the late-game areas, making for a series of challenging but rewarding fights. Malenia, Blade of Miquella is the sister of, you guessed it, Miquella, who is an Empyrean who cursed to be forever young. So, if you need a breakdown of how to deal with the Elden Ring Malenia boss, we've got you covered. 

If you need a primer on defeating the rest of the Sharbearers, check out:

• Elden Ring Godrick boss fight
• Elden Ring Radahn boss fight
• Elden Ring Morgott boss fight
• Elden Ring Rykard boss fight
• Elden Ring Mohg boss fight

Elden Ring Malenia Boss Fight: Where Is Malenia Elden Ring?

Malenia is located at the very end of the Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree legacy dungeon, which can be accessed from the Consecrated Snowfield. This is a hidden area in the Mountaintops of the Giants which can only be accessed after you collect both parts of the Elden Ring Haligtree Medallion. In the lore, this area as created by Miquella as a way of allowing himself to grow to be an adult and halt his curse of youth. Miquella also did this to help cure Malenia of the Scarlet Rot that was eating her body and anyone who came close. 

Once in this Haligtree, you'll need to make your way to Ordina, Liturgical Town, which requires a puzzle to be solved that will let you take the teleporter to the Haligtree. Malenia is located at the very root of the Haligtree, meaning you need to make your way to the bottom of the area. 

• A good way of preparing for this fight is to ensure you have the max amount of flasks, so check our Elden Ring Golden Seed locations.

Elden Ring Malenia Boss Fight: Phase One, Blade Of Miquella

The first phase of this fight will see you fight Malenia in her Blade of Miquella form. Before getting into the moves of Malenia, there are some things you need to know about her. She has very fast and fluid attacks which deal a tonne of damage, and whenever she lands a hit on yourself, a summon, or ally, she will heal 200 HP. This includes blocks too, so you will have to learn to dodge her moves, or she will continue to regain her HP throughout. 

This makes the Malenia boss fight one of the few that is made more difficult with a summon, but the Elden Ring Black Knife Tiche is the perfect summon due to her high mobility and dodge potential. While she will take damage from some attacks, she deals out enough damage to make it worth it and negate Malenia's heal. 

Malenia is also weak to the bleed effect, making it one of the best ways to deal high damage to her. Frost is also a weakness as it will counteract her healing abilities, so making a build that focuses on these status effects will make your battle a little easier. Lastly, the Elden Ring Bloodhound's Step is one of the best Ashes of War for this battle, as it will allow you to dodge her most devastating attacks much easier.

The first attack you will need to learn to avoid is the Waterfowl Dance, which has become a somewhat infamous move due to its difficulty to avoid. In this move, Malenia leaps in the air before diving toward and slashing around her in a sphere, creating an AoE where you can take damage. She will perform this slash a further two times, tracking you with dashes, before a final two slashes that she doesn't move for. 

Once she jumps into the air, if you have a pot equipped (frost or blood pot being the best) you can cancel her out of the move, and if you are close enough to hit her, enough damage will also stop her from performing the move. If you react fast enough to the animation of her jumping, you can also just run far away to avoid it, but you need to be unbelievably quick to pull this off. Bloodhound's Step can make this a lot easier, which is the reason we suggest using it in this fight. If you have to try and dodge Waterfowl Dance the good old way, then it can be done, but you will need pinpoint precision with your dodges. 

You'll want to dodge into her first attack just after she dashes, and then roll away for the next two attacks as she dashes, before rolling into the fourth attack, and finally rolling away from the fifth one. The timing is difficult here, so practice really will make perfect; expect to mess it up many times before you get it right. 

The rest of the attacks are by no means a cakewalk, but none are anywhere near as difficult to dodge. One simple attack she can perform is a kick, but this is typically followed up by one of four different combos. One is a delayed forward stab, the second is a sword swipe followed by an overhead slam, the third will cause her to make two quick swipes, before following it up with a third, and finally, she can also grab you and impale you on her sword. The kick and grab attack here are unable to be blocked, so you will need to dodge these, but dodging away after the kick move will provide enough distance to avoid most of the potential attacks. 

The final move of note in the first phase is the Prosthesis Rapid Attack. She only uses this attack when her sword is pointing to her right, and it's signified by a distinct pinging sound. She will perform three sword slashes in quick successions, before making a final horizontal swipe that can sometimes be delayed. This attack can also be performed whenever, as she can use to begin, carry on, or end a combo of other moves. To avoid this, roll into the first attack and carry on moving away from her, waiting for the final slash to give you an opening. 

The first phase of Melania is a pure sword fight, so it's all about dodging her attacks and getting in the damage whenever you can. As mentioned before, the Black Knife Tiche will help tremendously thanks to the flame ability it has which can take a chunk off Malenia's health. Once you've depleted her health, you may think it's over, but she will transform into the Goddess of Rot, sprouting wings and gaining some new abilities. 

• Make sure you look at the Elden Ring achievement list so you can see how to 100% the game. 

Elden Ring Malenia Boss Fight: Phase Two, Goddess Of Rot

Malenia will always start off phase two with the attack called Scarlet Aeonia. She will dive onto you and summon a large flower that explodes before a Scarlet Rot mist covers the area, poisoning you if you remain for too long. Your best bet is to roll back just as she dives and continue back to avoid the mist. She will stay still in the centre of the flower for a while, so with ranged attacks you can deal a tonne of damage, and once the mist begins to fade, you can run in just to get in some physical attacks before she gets back up. If you manage to deal enough damage here, you can stagger her and stop her from going into another attack, essentially draining half of her health. 

The other phase two move to watch out for is Phantom Spirits. During this, Malenia will rise into the air and fire out a series of phantom versions of herself which will attack. They will perform two slashes followed by a slam attack, before doing another slash, a quick thrust, and then a longer thrust. This move isn't too difficult to avoid, as you can run around Malenia in circles dodging two times, before switching direction, and repeating.

The rest of the attacks are the same as the first phase, so if you have learned how to deal with those they shouldn't give you too much trouble. The best way of finishing her off in the second phase is waiting for her to perform another Scarlet Aenoia attack. If you have drained a bunch of her health from when she did it the first time, repeating the process should ensure you kill her while she remains still. Once she is dead, luckily she will stay dead, and you'll have conquered one of the most difficult bosses in video game history. Congratulations. 

That's all for our guide on how to become victorious in the Elden Ring Malenia boss fight, and now you know about the types of moves she performs, how to dodge them, and what the best damage dealing stratagems are.

Make sure you are ready for the final fight of the game with our Elden Ring Elden Beast guide.